


Better Than Nothing

by bluemermaid



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 00:58:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1570097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemermaid/pseuds/bluemermaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world ignored Marietta Edgecombe with blank stares and cold silence; Pansy Parkinson was like a crackling fire in the center of the big, wide winter all around her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Than Nothing

**Author's/Artist's Notes:** Written for [](http://hp-beholder.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://hp-beholder.livejournal.com/)**hp_beholder**.

  
Marietta paced the floor nervously, with one hand over her stomach. She always felt fluttery and sick when she came up this way. The very reason she was there was such a mess of good and bad that she didn't know how to categorize it, which was very irritating to the sort of Ravenclaw who relied on logic. But there was no logic in this.

There was a bit of the past in her nerves, too, which was even more foolish because Marietta couldn't even remember her past. It made her furious,the gaps in her memory, which had been torn from her without permission and without punishment. The so-called "good" side couldn't be bothered to do anything about an innocent girl having her mind invaded, and they expected her to choose them over the Ministry? But perhaps Marietta wasn't innocent enough for them. She certainly didn't feel innocent.

Marietta pushed her irritation and nerves away as best she could, and focused on the reason she had come to this corridor. Seven paces did the trick, and the door materialized in the wall. Marietta placed her hand on it and took a deep breath before entering.

Pansy was there already; Pansy was always there already. Marietta had come to suspect that Pansy was purposefully giving Marietta the wrong times for their rendezvous, just so that she'd have something else to complain about. Pansy loved having things to complain about.

"Well, look who finally decided to show up," Pansy said. She grinned. "Hey, Sneak."

Marietta grimaced and shut the door behind her. "How long have you been waiting?" she asked, making her way slowly across the floor, until she was standing beside the low bed which sat in the center of the room. The duvet was a deep purple and looked very plush and comfortable; Marietta ran her hand across it. Of course, only the best would be good enough in Pansy's brain.

"Forever," Pansy replied, lying back with her arms spread out wide, her eyes screwed tightly shut and her lips twitching into a smirk. "You're terrible at making appointments."

"You're terrible at everything," Marietta shot back, even as she climbed up onto the bed and slid her hands up Pansy's torso. There was no point in pretending she didn't want to touch Pansy; that had grown tiring several meetings ago.

"Yeah, but you love it." Pansy laughed delightedly as Marietta settled on top of her, and Pansy lifted her head for a kiss, biting hard on Marietta's lower lip. Her fingers tangled in Marietta's wild mess of curls. "I wouldn't be here if you weren't such a good kisser," Pansy mumbled, as Marietta began to tug Pansy's robes off her shoulders.

"I'm sure you wouldn't," Marietta replied, smiling despite herself, despite the swirling mess of her emotions. She hated Pansy more than anything, hated the way Pansy sneered and shrieked and teased. She hated Pansy, and yet there she was kissing Pansy's lips, and caressing Pansy's body. Marietta hated Pansy more than anything, but she wanted her more than anything, too.

She wanted to feel Pansy's soft curves and taste her skin; she wanted to break through that frustrating outer demeanor of pride and tear Pansy's soul open. Marietta needed Pansy's attention because it made her feel human; she wished desperately that Pansy could show her, somehow, that she felt the same way. But no matter how hard Marietta kissed her or how loudly she cried, Pansy still just smiled and figuratively patted Marietta on the head. There was something between them, but Marietta couldn't seem to make it manifest itself openly; it lurked in the shadows of their touch.

"See you next time," Pansy said casually, after, as they went their separate ways, and despite the smile on Pansy's face, Marietta felt frustrated. Still, as she always told herself, it was better than nothing. That was all she got with Pansy.

 

*****

 

It started logically enough: Marietta woke up from a stupor looking like a disgusting freak, and everybody hated her for it.

The worst part was that for the first couple of days, she didn't even know what had happened. She'd been holed up in the Hospital Wing and _nobody would tell her anything,_ and it made her want to tear her hair out. Marietta's face itched and Cho was the only person who would visit her, sitting on the edge of her seat with her hands between her thighs and biting her lower lip. "I know you just made a mistake, Mari," she said, and when Marietta asked her what sort of mistake it was, Cho only shook her head and rushed out of the room in tears.

Marietta had always been very fond of Cho, but the girl could be a right mess sometimes.

It was only after she'd been allowed to go back to classes that it all came out, the secret DADA club and the curse on Marietta's face. Everybody was talking about it then, but still no one would say anything directly to Marietta. She got used to rooms going silent whenever she walked into them. She got used to sitting alone in the Great Hall, always with empty spaces between her and her fellow Ravenclaws, who muttered under their breath and gave Marietta cold looks when they thought she wasn't looking. But she was always looking.

Marietta had committed a sin, and though she would never understand the full extent of it, it had marked her for life and she could never get away from it. She stared at her disgusting, hideous, traitorous face in the mirror and couldn't stop herself from crying, from hating every inch of herself from one side of the scarring to the other.

And so it was perfectly logical for everyone to hate Marietta Edgecombe, who was a "SNEAK" forever and ever. After all, who could say otherwise, when it was spelled out plainly right across the girl's face? You couldn't trust Marietta, and you couldn't like her, either, because she was ugly on the inside and out.

Oh, Cho tried to be nice, and she apparently defended Marietta to Harry and his horrible friends, but it was never the same between them again, there was always this awkwardness and Cho stopped telling Mari all of her secrets. Marietta pretended not to notice. She got quite good at that.

And then, there were the Slytherins. Most of them were just like everybody else, of course, despite the shadow of negative stereotypes. Most of them avoided Marietta just like everybody else. But some of them did not.

"Eww, look at the Sneak," said Pansy Parkinson, sneering as Marietta walked past, with her head down and her hands clenched into fists. "She's so disgusting, isn't she? I'd kill myself if my face looked like that."

There was smattering of giggles, and then Marietta found herself being shoved hard. She looked up, startled, and glared at Pansy, who was grinning. "Watch it," Marietta snapped.

"Watch yourself," Pansy replied smugly. She laughed. "But I don't blame you; I wouldn't want to look at myself if I had a face like yours, either."

"Fuck off," said Marietta, shoving Pansy aside and continuing on her way.

"Must be hard having no friends," Pansy called after her, and Marietta held her head up, determined not to let a stupid little girl hurt her feelings. "But thanks for helping the Inquisitorial Squad out!" There was another rush of laughter, beating itself against Marietta's back. She tried her best not to listen.

 

*****

 

Pansy Parkinson was angry and ugly, her face twisted as she looked up at Marietta and spewed out her hatred, criticizing Marietta for her face and her status and her blackened heart. Marietta watched her with a sort of outside distance, her face blank as she took in the sight of the young woman before her.

"Why aren't you listening to me?" Pansy demanded, whipping her wand out and scraping it down Marietta's arm, leaving a trail of burning blisters in its wake. "Pay attention when I'm insulting you!"

Marietta was paying attention; she was paying too much attention. Pansy seemed suspended in midair, her words seeping slowly into Marietta's brain. Pansy was the embodiment of hatred and anger and all the miserable things about Hogwarts, about the world. And yet Marietta felt herself drawn to it, the intense emotions spilling out from Pansy's lips and drenching Marietta like a rainstorm. It was _something_ , it was a tangible thing, their interactions, Pansy following Marietta around with her biting words and blistering magic. It was _something_ , it wasn't just the usual nothingness that came from everybody else.

The world ignored Marietta Edgecombe with blank stares and cold silence; Pansy Parkinson was like a crackling fire in the center of the big, wide winter all around her. Pansy was a horrible, horrible person, but she was _there_ , and the barrage of hatred was better than receiving absolutely nothing at all from everybody else.

"You're drawn to me, aren't you?" Marietta asked, with some combination of desperation and pleasure, her lips quirking up into a smile, even as her arm burned with the force of Pansy's anger.

"What? Of course not!" Pansy laughed cruelly. "Why should I ever like you?"

"I never said you liked me," Marietta replied. "I said you're drawn to me. You need me. You can't keep away from me, can you? I fascinate you."

Pansy spluttered some unintelligible response, which only Marietta smile wider, knowing she had hit her mark and feeling a rush of heady satisfaction from it. If it were mutually true, if they could both feel some strange horrible _something_ between them, then maybe Marietta wouldn't feel so alone anymore, maybe she could free herself from the dark grey cloud of nothing she'd been thrust into. "You do not fascinate me," Pansy said, her words sharp and bitter, but it couldn't fool Marietta anymore, not when she had found her old friend logic again and followed it to its home of conclusions.

"It's all right," Marietta said. "You fascinate me, too."

And really, it was only a small step after that to a kiss, because Marietta desperately needed _something_ and Pansy had been so kind as to provide it for her.

 

*****

 

"You're so ugly," Pansy said, as she pressed Marietta down hard on the bed, as she kissed Marietta, as her hands fumbled under Marietta's skirt and her fingers gripped Marietta's thighs. "I can't believe I'm kissing somebody so ugly."

"You're not so beautiful yourself," Marietta snapped back, not so much angry at the words as she was by the fact that Pansy's fingers were so close to her knickers and not inside of them instead.

She was used to this now, this word "ugly." It was a word Pansy used often, in tones that varied from disgust to delight. Pansy thought that Marietta was ugly, and Marietta was okay with it because, secretly, she agreed with her. Marietta _was_ ugly, and there was nothing she could do about it. Why should Pansy avoid the truth? It was refreshing, actually. Marietta preferred the truth; Cho's half-hearted _"you look fine, really"_ was nothing but a frustrating lie.

Was that why Marietta had betrayed the DA? Because she couldn't stand lying? Marietta would never be sure, but she liked to think that was so.

And so Pansy thought Marietta was ugly, and it was okay, because they both knew that their presence in the Room of Needs was for reasons other than the search for beauty. There was an odd attraction between them that went beyond such superficial things as physical appearance; it was a mutual need for attention and validation. Marietta needed an escape from the corridors of cold shoulders, and Pansy needed an outlet for her inner rage and frustration. Marietta couldn't care less for the reasons for Pansy's anger; she was there only to serve her own needs.

Or so she told herself. After they had thoroughly exhausted and used one another, Marietta watched Pansy sit on the edge of the bed and pull her stockings back on. There was something delicate about Pansy, when she wasn't screaming and sneering and hexing people. There was something lovely about her. Marietta found herself enjoying the fall of Pansy's hair, the line of her back, the way her fingers moved as she buttoned her blouse.

"Why are you here, if you hate me so much?" Marietta asked, touching Pansy's arm as they stood by the door, preparing to go back out into the cold and empty world.

Pansy's gaze was hard at first, but as Marietta stared at her, she softened. "Don't know, really," she said, with a shrug of her shoulders. "Just something about you, Sneak. Guess you do fascinate me." She grinned.

Marietta's mouth twisted, and she didn't know how to feel. She hated Pansy and Pansy hated her, and yet there they were, smiling at one another in a secret room with a rumpled bed behind them. Here was another truth: there was no more logic in this.

 

*****

 

Marietta stood up from her seat and gathered her things, making her way slowly towards the doors of the Great Hall. Her mind was preoccupied with thoughts of the essay she had to write for her DADA class, and so she didn't notice Draco and his cronies until they were upon her.

"Get out of my way, freak," Draco snapped, taking Marietta's arm and yanking her away from him. He didn't even look at her.

"Excuse you," Marietta replied darkly, pulling her arm from his grip.

"Oi, watch what you say to Draco," snarled one of Malfoy's constant companions, a short and stocky boy with a mess of brown hair. "He's under a lot of stress lately."

Marietta rolled her eyes. "Oh, please."

The taller of the two cronies lifted his wand menacingly. "Maybe we should practice those new curses on her, Vince."

Vince laughed. "Yeah, maybe."

"Stop it," Pansy said, appearing from nowhere, and scowling at the lot of them. "Leave her alone."

Marietta's eyes nearly popped out of her skull. Now _this_ was as far from logic as she had ever seen. She partially thought she might be dreaming. A secretive pinch of her own waist told her that wasn't so.

The boys seemed to feel the same as Marietta. "C'mon, Pans, quit ruining all our fun all the time," the taller one said.

"Why on _earth_ should you care what we say to the Sneak?" Draco asked, his eyes suspicious as he looked from Marietta to Pansy. "You were hardest on her of all of us."

Pansy attempted a casual stance and expression, and Marietta nearly laughed at how easily she saw through it. There was an odd fluttering in Marietta's chest. "I don't care," Pansy said with a shrug, and Marietta recognized it as the same exact shrug Pansy had given to her, in the Room of Needs. "I just thought we had better uses for our time."

The shorter boy, Vince, shrugged too, and even almost smiled at Marietta. "It don't matter to me," he said.

"Come on, let's just get going," Draco said, and his voice sounded strained and tired. "We do have better things to do."

Pansy remained as they left, with her hands on her hips and her gaze avoiding Marietta's. "Again tonight?" she asked, still trying to sound casual.

Marietta laughed then. "Of course," she replied. "You know, Pansy, if I didn't know any better, I'd almost think you were standing up for me just then."

"Well, I wasn't," Pansy snapped. "So just forget it."

Marietta nearly asked her why she was so afraid, but the answer was so obvious to her that she closed her mouth as soon as she'd opened it. Pansy was afraid because Marietta was ugly, and who would ever want to admit their attraction to an ugly freak? And so Marietta just nodded, and walked away, trying to fix her mind back on her essay.

It was a rough task.

 

*****

 

Pansy conjured a mirror and gazed at herself in it, poking at her face. "Merlin, I'm hideous," she said.

Marietta startled. "What?"

Pansy turned her head and looked at Marietta. They were sprawled out on their secret bed, resting, and Marietta already felt strange because they usually left right away, eager to escape after sating their twisted need for one another. But here was Pansy lingering, and giving Marietta the oddest look. "You heard what I said," Pansy snapped. "There's no need to repeat it."

Marietta sat up. "You're not hideous," she said sharply. "Don't be stupid."

Pansy laughed, and the mirror enlarged before her, so that the two of them could look upon themselves side by side. Marietta hesitated, because she hated looking upon her own ruined face. She kept her eyes trained on Pansy's reflection instead, which was pale and pretty and smiling at her. Pansy always looked pretty when her smiles weren't twisted with hate. "I'm not hideous, am I?" Pansy asked. "You really think that?"

"You're just fishing for compliments now," Marietta said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not here to validate you so pathetically."

"No, then why are you here?" Pansy asked. "It seems to me we're both here to validate one another. Pathetically, as you put it."

"Well, fine then," Marietta said in a huff, blowing her curls out of her face with frustration. "You're not going to win any beauty contests, sure, but that doesn't mean you're _hideous._ You don't look anything like me."

"Like you? Oh, you mean your face."

Marietta's eyebrows shot up in disbelief. "You make it sound like it's hardly noticable."

Pansy shrugged. "The letters are fading, you know. Haven't you noticed?"

Marietta reluctantly looked at herself in the mirror. The "SNEAK" was still clearly visible to herself, but perhaps that was only because it meant so much to her, because it was such a strong part of her current identity. As she looked closer, she had to admit that it wasn't nearly as dark and prominent as it had first been. But it was still there. She looked back to Pansy. "But you say I'm ugly every single day."

"Yes, well...." The mirror faded from their sight, and Pansy looked down at her lap. "Maybe I didn't _entirely_ mean it."

"What?"

"Don't make me repeat myself, Sneak!"

"Don't call me Sneak anymore, then. I'm rather sick of it. If you're going to shake my worldview with your sudden declarations of affection, then you can call me by my bloody name."

Pansy looked at her; they stared at one another for a moment. Marietta raised her eyebrows questioningly. Pansy sighed. "Fine," she said. "Marietta."

"There, then," said Marietta, who found a smile blooming despite herself. "Was that so painful?"

"It doesn't mean I like you," Pansy shot back, though Marietta didn't believe her for a moment. "It really doesn't."

"I really don't know, Pansy," said Marietta, who leaned forward and slowly kissed Pansy on the mouth. "I think you do like me, after all."

"If I do," said Pansy, between kisses, "it isn't because of your face. It's what's underneath it. You entertain me. That's all it is."

"That's fine by me," said Marietta. "You entertain me, as well."

 

*****

 

They would never write love letters to one another, or even admit that they cared for one another. But Marietta found she hated Pansy Parkinson a little less each day, and she thought Pansy felt the same way. That was enough, for now.

And as the time went by, Marietta even forgot to find herself ugly. Because when everybody else coldly ignored her, Pansy leaned in and smiled, providing the flame, and it was much, much better than nothing.  



End file.
